Heuristics in international business: A systematic literature review and directions for future research

This paper aims at depicting the status of research on heuristics in the international business domain to understand the main topic areas in which heuristics are addressed and delve into the types of heuristics used by managers and entrepreneurs when dealing with international business activities. These are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, drawing attention on the adoption of heuristics for decision-making. To this aim, the paper systematically reviews studies published in top-ranked international business journals between 1997 and 2018. The systematic literature review shows that the main research areas in which heuristics are developed concern foreign market entry, post-entry international expansion, foreign market selection, and international entrepreneurship. The paper also discusses the type of heuristics that are utilized by decision-makers when dealing with the uncertainty related to the internationalization process. The results of this study show that the international business literature develops the concept of heuristics in very various ways, tending to develop a plurality of approaches, without recurring or dominant forms. It is, however, possible to identify the types of heuristics and heuristically-based decisions, and a significant subset of the analyzed studies show a positive view on their effectiveness in the uncertainty of internationalization processes.     

Evolution of industry 4.0 and international business: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

Industry 4.0 has attracted significant attention from researchers in the international business field for a decade. This paper critically analyzes the literature on the relationships between Industry 4.0 and international business. A systematic literature review of 59 studies published between 2011 and December 2020 is conducted. Using the Theory, Context, Characteristics, and Method (TCCM) framework, the review identifies various gaps in research and proposes future research agenda. The results show that (1) Industry 4.0 modifies specific domains in the field of international competitiveness and organization and (2) international business affects the choices and opportunities of adopting Industry 4.0. The need for further theoretical development in the relationships between international business and Industry 4.0 is observed especially in terms of location choices, global value chains, international organizations and international trade. The results contribute to the relevant research field and provide substantial managerial implications.     

Management control in multinational companies: a systematic literature review

Review of Managerial Science - Executing management control across borders is crucial for multinational companies (MNCs). Various management control mechanisms serve to align foreign subsidiaries...     

Nothing succeeds like succession: A critical review of leader succession literature since 1994

This article reviews leader succession research from 1994 to 2004. We begin with a brief summary of Kesner and Sebora's [Kesner, I. F., & Sebora, T. C. (1994). Executive succession: Past, present and future. Journal of Management, 20, 327–372.] review of leader succession. We then critically examine intervening progress made by scholars regarding antecedents and consequences of succession. We conclude by critiquing the state of the field from both theoretical and methodological perspectives, and offering recommendations for future research. Generally, succession continues to be an attractive venue for scholars from a wide array of disciplines. Theory and methodology continue to be of variable quality, though some progress has been noted in the past decade on both fronts. Particularly notable research has generally either examined contextual aspects of succession, thus advancing our knowledge beyond main effects research, or used succession phenomena as windows into advancing organization theory.     

The front-end of projects: a systematic literature review and structuring

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results of a comprehensive systematic literature survey on the front-end of a project, commissioned by the Project Management Institute. The dedicated literature on the front-end is sparse: although the front-end has been shown to be critical to the strategic success of the project, this phase of the lifecycle is not well understood. This paper presents the literature on the concept of the front-end, and defines a temporarily ordered structure of generic processes that form the ‘front-end’ and how these fit together as a coherent whole. These start from the preliminaries to the initiative, then the project purpose (for various stakeholders), the initial analysis and scenario analysis; the analysis of alternatives and choice of project concept; assessment of the project, finishing with setting up project execution. It summarises the recent literature at each of these elements in turn, specifically as they relate to the front-end.     

Conducting systematic literature review in operations management

Systematic literature review (SLR) is a well-known research method. However, there is a paucity of detailed SLR guidelines in operations management (OM). The recent interest in SLR in OM has not been followed by the same rigour observed in disciplines as medical sciences and public policy. There are no OM-specific SLR protocols, detailed step-by-step methods and reporting procedures. Therefore, this paper provides a step-by-step approach to SLR for OM scholars and an overview of SLR’s evolution as a research method in OM and the resulting progression of themes. The step-by-step approach aims to serve as a guideline sufficiently broad to avoid skipping any significant step, but still being easy to be understood and applied. The paper describes procedures for rigourous SLR, reveals a growing use of literature review in OM, specially for qualitative SLR and traditional narrative reviews, assesses contemporary and emerging themes in OM, and provides a research agenda.     

Social media and luxury: A systematic literature review

Luxury, historically an exclusive, rare and elitist phenomenon, is changing. This is predominantly driven by technological developments, particularly social media, and the rising level of consumer empowerment in the marketplace. A maturing stream of research has emerged assessing the effects of social media platforms on luxury brands, offerings and consumers. However, there has been no comprehensive analysis of this extant literature synthesizing the current state of knowledge and postulating future research directions. This paper addresses this gap by utilizing a systematic literature review approach. A total of 115 articles were collected and analysed and five core themes were identified, examining (1) luxury brand strategy, (2) luxury brand social media communications, (3) luxury consumer attitudes and perceptions, (4) engagement and (5) social media's influence on brand performance-related outcomes. These themes are comprehensively explored to understand the myriad impacts of social media on luxury businesses before conceptualizing the themes as a holistic framework explaining social media's role within luxury. The framework developed highlights the fragmented yet progressive nature of research on the confluence of social media and luxury, and signals fruitful avenues for further inquiry. It is proposed that scholarly attention is directed towards multiple lines of inquiry, including social media's role in luxury brand construction online, social media's role in facilitating ‘moments of luxury’, younger consumers’ luxury consumption, as well as the integration of both future innovative technological developments and novel social media platforms within luxury branding.     

The weakness of strong ties: Sampling bias,social ties,and nepotism in family business succession

Decision-making is a complex cognitive activity filled with bias. Leader decision-making is unique because it occurs in a social context. We examine how biases resulting from social network dynamics complicate leaders' decision-making. In particular, we focus on a specific case of leader cognition: nepotism in the succession decisions in the context of family businesses. Succession often leads to a decline in performance because leaders frequently choose family members as their successor, a form of nepotism. We show that even when a leader can overcome individual decision biases, a bias in sampling resulting from families' strong ties can still allow a leader to wrongly conclude that family members are better qualified than external candidates when the opposite is true. We demonstrate this phenomenon using simulation modeling and explore solutions to family business succession planning.     

How new leaders affect strategic change following a succession event: A critical review of the literature

In this study we review literature on leaders' impact on strategic change in the context of CEO succession events. We critically examine the progress made by research within the field focusing on four questions: WHY, WHAT, HOW, and WHEN. WHY addresses the theoretical arguments put forth in the literature to explain the phenomenon of post-succession strategic change. WHAT addresses the contingency factors that have been argued to affect leaders' impact on strategic change in succession contexts. HOW addresses the way, in which strategic change manifests itself within firms. Finally, WHEN addresses the temporal dimension of strategic change. Overall, we find that although research on the leadership succession strategic change (LSSC) relationship is immature with attention being focused on only few theoretical explanations and research questions, it is indeed evolving. We find need for improvements to theory, research questions pursued, and methodology and offer several opportunities to extend the literature along these needs.     

Risk management in SMEs: A systematic literature review and future directions

Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are considered as the backbone of European economics and growth; however, their peculiar features and the limited resources drive them to adopt different tools and methods when compared to large companies. In particular, the approach adopted in SMEs for Risk Management (RM) seems not to be specifically studied and understood. To this extent, the aim of the paper is to outline the development and the state of the art of RM in SMEs, grasping new future research opportunities in this field. By conducting a systematic literature review with bibliometric tools, 61 papers published until the end of 2016 have been selected and analysed. They demonstrate that some RM streams, such as financial RM and Enterprise RM, are among the most studied in the literature. However, a holistic approach is still not diffused nor sufficiently developed in SMEs, even if the types of identified risks are increasing. There are new emerging RM streams. In particular, the relevance of Project RM, Strategic RM, and Supply Chain RM has been increasing, and it pushes researchers and practitioners to deepen the knowledge of the tools and practices that characterise them. New theoretical and practical studies on RM in SMEs will support them in protecting their business and leveraging their business value, taking advantage of the management of different types of risks.     

Internationalization from Central and Eastern Europe: A systematic literature review

Economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has led to a dramatic increase in CEE firms' participation in international markets. This applies to different types of firms – from large emerging market multinationals to small international new ventures. In this paper, we systematically review the research on CEE outward internationalization, which we define as internationalization of CEE-based firms in the form of exporting or FDI, and contribute to literature by providing a complete picture of the state of the art and outlining potential avenues for future research. We find that while the CEE region has been described as a fruitful ground for developing new and testing existing theories, it heavily loads on the latter. We suggest that greater reliance on theories and concepts from the field of entrepreneurship and a stronger focus on internationalization decision processes might further enrich our understanding of internationalization from CEE.     

Barriers in Green Lean implementation: a combined systematic literature review and interpretive structural modelling approach

Green Lean has recently emerged as an alternative strategy for organisations to pursue both operational and sustainability excellence. The interest on this approach has rapidly risen in both academic and industry circles. However, despite this interest, very limited research has focused on its implementation, and no research has investigated the barriers that hinder the success of such activity. This study investigates the Green Lean implementation barriers and their contextual relationships and effects on the integration and deployment of this approach. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR), Interpretative Structural Modelling and fuzzy Matriced’ Impacts Croise’s Multiplication Appliqée a UN Classement (MICMAC) analyses were carried out. Fifteen barriers were extracted from the SLR and then validated in consultation with industry and academic experts. The Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) method was used to understand the relationship between the fifteen barriers and to develop a hierarchical model of these. The different barriers were classified into ‘linkage’ and ‘dependent’ barriers by using MICMAC analysis. The results suggested that all the identified barriers play an important role, and hence can equally act as a significant hurdle to the implementation of Green Lean projects. This study can help managers and policy-makers in better understanding these barriers. Thus, they can be assisted in managing and prioritising barriers towards the successful implementation of Green Lean initiatives for better financial and environmental performance.     

Re-examining systematic literature review in management research: Additional benefits and execution protocols

A systematic literature review provides a comprehensive overview of literature related to a research question and synthesizes previous work to strengthen a particular topic’s foundation of knowledge, while adhering to the concepts of transparency and bias reduction. In the growing, complex, and dynamic, management research field, systematic literature reviews have value, yet there is relatively little work published describing how management researchers might apply this approach. In explaining the purpose of systematic reviews, we define a systematic review and describe its rationale. We then discuss how systematic literature reviews may enhance management research and address current management research shortcomings. We present a detailed systematic literature review execution guideline, outlining systematic literature review steps, and providing keys to effective implementation.     

Drivers and mechanisms for online communities performance: A systematic literature review

The health crisis has highlighted online communities' interest and effectiveness in connecting isolated people in response to urgent problems or to recreate social links. However, despite much research over the last 30 years, there is no global vision regarding the conditions and processes that act on such communities’ dynamism and allow them to reach their objectives. In other words, the conditions for online community performance have not been fully investigated. Online community performance relies on the presence of mechanisms such as socialisation, structuring, participation, commitment and common motivations. Those mechanisms are favoured by a multitude of drivers identified in the literature. This paper is aimed at presenting the current state of research on the conditions that affect online community performance. We conducted a systematic literature review of 529 sources and identified, through a selection of 178 articles, the dimensions where the understanding of performance is rarer, such as drivers related to contributions and those affecting the common motivation mechanism.     

Societal effects of social media in organizations: Reflective points deriving from a systematic literature review and a bibliometric meta-analysis

Social media provides its users with uninterrupted access to information for a variety of matters. On the one hand, social media helps people to express themselves freely and access various content, thus, forming a global view. On the other hand, social media may easily lead individuals to form polarized attitudes by impacting their behaviour in various contexts (e.g., organizational contexts). Such contradiction cannot be neglected. It is found to be an essential societal phenomenon that needs further investigation. The study first aims at realizing how existing literature of different domains analyse and conceptualize the effects of social media. Then, it leverages such societal effects on organizations. A total of 231 articles were used for a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric meta-analysis on this topic and were further analysed with VOSviewer software. The study organizes the existing literature on this topic and provides issues, perceptions, and theories that are used to explain the effects of social media in society, and then it reflects on the potential impact on organizations.     

Industrial digitalization. A systematic literature review and research agenda

This paper addresses the recent growth in publications on the topic of digitalization by systematically reviewing the literature dealing with this major technological and organizational transformation in the manufacturing sector. Our aim is to enhance the understanding of this phenomenon and provide a critical account of the state of the art of the research on industrial digitalization. After summarizing the different conceptualizations of digitalization and the stages of its evolution, we identify four thematic areas (technologies, impacts, enabling factors, and barriers) and create a meaningful segmentation of the existing publications along these dimensions. We then develop a future research agenda on industrial digitalization at both a conceptual and an empirical level, encompassing the following themes: (i) the need for a more nuanced conceptualization; (ii) the potential evolution of one or more digital technologies toward the category of “general-purpose technology”; (iii) the search for new contingency approaches; (iv) the development of accurate models of inter-firm collaboration among digital manufacturers; and (v) the elaboration of suitable solutions able to guarantee the compatibility of industrial digitalization with ethical and sustainability principles.     

Organizational learning and knowledge in public service organizations: A systematic review of the literature

This paper is a systematic review of the literature on organizational learning and knowledge with relevance to public service organizations. Organizational learning and knowledge are important to public sector organizations, which share complex external challenges with private organizations, but have different drivers and goals for knowledge. The evidence shows that the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge are under-researched in relation to the public sector and, importantly, this raises wider questions about the extent to which context is taken into consideration in terms of learning and knowledge more generally across all sectors. A dynamic model of organizational learning within and across organizational boundaries is developed that depends on four sets of factors: features of the source organization; features of the recipient organization; the characteristics of the relationship between organizations; and the environmental context. The review concludes, first, that defining 'organization' is an important element of understanding organizational learning and knowledge. Second, public organizations constitute an important, distinctive context for the study of organizational learning and knowledge. Third, there continues to be an over-reliance on the private sector as the principal source of theoretical understanding and empirical research and this is conceptually limiting for the understanding of organizational learning and knowledge. Fourth, differences as well as similarities between organizational sectors require conceptualization and research that acknowledge sector-specific aims, values and structures. Finally, it is concluded that frameworks for explaining processes of organizational learning at different levels need to be sufficiently dynamic and complex to accommodate public organizations.     

Peer effects and intentional entrepreneurial behaviour: A systematic literature review and research agenda

What role peers play in individuals’ decisions to become entrepreneurs and to what extent peer effects play a role in influencing behaviours at the various stages of business venturing are important questions for scholars and policymakers. This systematic review takes stock of the recent additions to the literature around the phenomenon of peer influence in entrepreneurship. The review identified 2894 documents which were then narrowed down through three consecutive filtering stages. We thematically analysed the final sample of 27 empirical studies that shed light on how individual peers influence the process and outcomes of these individuals’ entrepreneurial intentions and behaviour, allowing for critical analysis. We propose a conceptual schema of social influence that occurs in interactions among entrepreneurial individuals within business venturing and across the three stages of pre-formation, formation and growth. Our framework reconciles the conceptual classification around discovering, evaluating and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities with the mechanisms of social influence affecting entrepreneurial behaviours. Grounded in the findings of the literature review, this framework synthesizes peer influence in entrepreneurship with the tripartite distinction of the behavioural motives recognized in contemporary theories of social influence. We suggest promising directions for further research on how interactions with peers might affect individuals’ entrepreneurial behaviours.     

A dynamic perspective on the resilience of firms: A systematic literature review and a framework for future research

This study aims to answer the following research question: how is the resilience of firms defined in the business and management field? In doing so, we answer recent calls for research about a more thorough conceptualisation of the resilience of firms and its definition. We conducted a systematic literature review of 66 selected papers published between 2000 and 2017. By means of inductive content analysis, we analyse the definitions of ‘resilience’ and elaborate a novel conceptual framework that introduces a dynamic perspective on the resilience of firms. The proposed framework overcomes existing definitional fragmentation and raises awareness of the temporal dimension in the conceptualisation of the resilience of firms. We contribute to extant business and management literature on the resilience of firms by proposing a model that articulates two main paths for explaining organisational resilience, i.e. absorptive resilience and adaptive resilience paths. We also identify a set of key capabilities needed to be successfully resilient at the different stages of the two paths.     

Board characteristics effects on performance in family and non-family business: a multi-theoretical approach

This paper examines the role of the board of directors in influencing the value of Italian listed firms from 2003 to 2013. In particular, employing agency, stewardship and resource dependence theories, the study aims to compare board characteristics in family and non-family firms and define the theory that best applies to family firms. Empirical results show that the presence of CEO duality and busy directors has a positive effect on the value of family firms, while gender diversity has a negative impact on the value when a member of the family leads a family firm. Conversely, the size of the board positively affects the value of non-family firms. Our main findings suggest the prevalence, in family firms, of the benefits of the board structure argued by stewardship and resource dependence theories rather than the disadvantages expected from agency theory.